Acupuncture helps cancer patients cope

If Linda Ryan could manage to forget she was fighting breast cancer, the constant pain she felt in her bones served as a daily reminder.

“At times, it was a sharp pain, but it was always a constant pain. It definitely reduced my quality of life,” said the 51-year-old Lower Frankford Township woman, who felt fortunate to be able to work from home for a year in her inventory management job. Her cancer had been found early, for which she was thankful, but still she faced a lumpectomy, six rounds of chemotherapy with Herceptin and 33 radiation treatments.

“With each successive treatment, it’s more harmful to the body. By the time I would start feeling better, it would be time for the next round,” said Ryan, who suffered with bone pain, numbness in her fingers and toes, and eyes that watered frequently.

Through word of mouth, Ryan learned about an alternative way to deal with the side effects of chemotherapy: acupuncture.

“I knew about acupuncture for overall pain, and I use a chiropractor, so I wasn’t averse to using alternative forms of medicine,” Ryan said.

Relief of her symptoms came within one week.

“Just the fact that it took the pain away helped me feel better overall. I was able to get a good night’s sleep again,” she said.

Ryan, who is now cancer-free, is one of a growing number of cancer patients who use complementary and alternative medicine. The National Cancer Institute says 48 percent to 83 percent of patients have tried some form.

Though there have been few scientifically sound studies on the effectiveness of acupuncture for side effects of chemo, more patients are trying it for relief of anything from nausea and body pain to fatigue and neuropathy. The National Cancer Institute estimates up to 31 percent of cancer patients use acupuncture.

Acupuncture focuses on the body’s qi (pronounced chee), or energy, that flows along specific pathways, called meridians. If the qi becomes unbalanced, health can be affected. By inserting fine needles into specific points on a meridian, the stagnant qi is redirected to flow properly and restore health.

“I assess their baseline health, and by the pattern of their symptoms, I know I will treat the organ system that’s affected the most. When the energy of the organ is helped to function better, it helps to alleviate the symptoms,” said Ryan’s acupuncturist, Linda D’Agostino, who has offices at The Hetrick Center in Silver Spring Township and other locations. “Acupuncture helps the body restore its natural resources of healing.”

Some of the nation’s leading cancer centers, including Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, are incorporating acupuncture into their cancer care.

At Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, licensed acupuncturist Lihua Xu said the number of cancer patients she treats is increasing.

“Acupuncture balances the whole body and improves the immune system so that a patient’s energy to fight the cancer is improved,” she said.

Dr. Michael Malone, a doctor in family medicine at Hershey Medical Center who is also a licensed acupuncturist, said he is sometimes paged by the hematology/oncology department to give a treatment to a cancer patient for whom anti-nausea medications have not worked.

“In the oncology realm, acupuncture is more accepted than in some other medical areas because the doctors are more exposed to its use and see it works,” he said. “We don’t really know why it works for nausea, but for neuropathy, it may help stimulate the nerves and help them function properly.”

Mainstream doctors, however, want something they can measure, and it’s impossible to measure energy through meridians, he said.

“I don’t discount qi, but when I describe it to people in Western medicine, I stick to descriptions of results,” he said.

Some of the strongest evidence for acupuncture’s usefulness in cancer patients has been in the area of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, according to the National Institutes of Health. Current practice guidelines recommend acupuncture for this use, the NIH reported, with the caution that there might be a placebo effect in some studies.

Dr. Robert Gordon, a hematologist/oncologist with Andrews & Patel Associates in Hampden Township, said the placebo effect is generally present in one in four people who report a subjective illness.

“Acupuncture could be a placebo effect, but there is evidence that it might have an effect in blocking nerve impulses in the brain,” Gordon said. “I feel medically open enough that, since it’s not dangerous and has no adverse effects, if they want to pursue it and they can afford it, they have my blessing.”

Affording acupuncture can be a stumbling block since many insurances don’t cover it and it can cost more than $150 per treatment.

Derry Township resident Liz Reid paid about $500 out of pocket for acupuncture to help with severe side effects from the chemo she underwent for breast cancer in 2011.

“I was always a person who looked for alternatives to medicine, but I knew I had to embrace the chemotherapy treatment to get myself well, so I looked for alternative treatments to help,” said Reid, 56, who had low white blood cell counts, nausea, brain fog, elevated liver enzymes and body aches.

Acupuncture relieved her physical symptoms and her mental stress, she said. “Because I had so many side effects, I had a certain amount of anxiety about going back for more chemo. Acupuncture was so relaxing and stress-relieving that I really felt I was in a healing environment.”

Although she dedicated a portion of her budget to acupuncture because she felt it worked well, there came a point five months later when she had to stop going because of the cost, she said.

“For people who want to do something for a friend with cancer, pay for an acupuncture appointment. That would be a real gift,” she said.

Reid, now cancer free, credits acupuncture with helping her withstand the treatments she needed to get there.